The rise of Egyptians...

In Egypt a population has lost its fear of authority and taken to the streets in protests likely to bring about a huge change in their country and also the Arab world forever. Is this what we can call a democracy’s moment? Well according to many protestors that is what they want. Egyptians of all categories like old, poor, young, religious, comfortable and secular are talking the language of freedom and elections.

After 30 years of Mr. Mubarak, Egyptians don’t want to be ruled by another authoritarian ex-general in a suit. But the protestors in this case have outrun the politicians. The secular political opposition to Mr. Mubarak is weak because it has been oppressed for decades. There are few figures of stature for the protestors to rally around. The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic opposition group remains an important force with unknown intentions. In open elections according to many estimates the Islamic parties might get around one-third of the Egyptians vote. Behind the scenes the military still controls the nation’s infrastructure of power through close ties with government officials and wide business interests.

This open voice of protestors in Egypt seems like an early stage of a process which might someday earn the title of ‘Egyptian Revolution’. Many analysts in the west were doubtful that Mr. Mubarak would last long when he became the president of Egypt since he had no popular following or international stature. Although many of those western analysts have now retired and Mubarak still is the president, and has been so for three decades now which is longer than any Egyptian leader since the 19^th century founder of modern Egypt Mohammad Ali Pasha and this is so because he has ruled as a ‘quasi-military’ ruler.

For the entire period in presidency Mubarak has kept the nation under emergency law and gave his police sweeping powers of arrest and the right to ignore Egyptians’ basic freedoms. The authorities have used torture and indefinite detention to crush opposition.

Egypt poverty is not high according to the international standards. Incomes have seemed to be on the rise and progress on life expectancy, infant mortality, years of education and other indicators of Egypt have been quite impressive. But unemployment has not remained high especially among the educated urban youth. And inequality has been quite severe. Around 40% of Egypt citizens live on $2 or even less a day.

Mr. Mubarak has done little to prepare the way for any successor. He also had no vice president and he had given no public indication of who or what he wanted to come next. The citizens of Egypt thought for a long time that Mubarak wanted his son Gamal to succeed him in a type of pseudo monarchy but they weren’t quite sure about that since he never said anything about his succession. The entire nation was worried and concerned about the entire succession issue so the nation took the issue into its own hands and is now not ready to leave till the president decides he wants to leave.

Alizeh Gohar